


each according to his ability

by asynchrony



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Personal Growth, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27259039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asynchrony/pseuds/asynchrony
Summary: This is how it goes: the camera pans to a slender, white-haired boy with the captain's underscore under the white 1 on his jersey. He is not a starter. He is warming up methodically, substitute's number card on the bench beside him.Kita Shinsuke, Yuuji reads. Then he sits and watches, and that desire which had been burning low and steady for Sawamura's leadership ability consumes him alive.(in which Terushima reflects on the seeming contradiction between impulse and careful choice, and the synthesis of the two.)
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Terushima Yuuji
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25
Collections: Kita Ship Week 2021





	each according to his ability

This is how it goes: Yuuji meets a beautiful girl, then a red-headed boy, neither of whom he understands or cares to understand. Then, he meets their captain.

It would not be an overstatement to say that Sawamura changes Yuuji's life. Not on purpose, of course: Karasuno's number one is too oblivious and driven to dispense wisdom or take his hand and lead him along the road to leadership. But he broadens his stance, two deliberate steps, and galvanizes his team. Yuuji sees that, wants it, doesn't know how to get it. That kind of bullheaded determination that comes naturally to Sawamura isn't something he can work toward, any more than he can make his hands broader and blunter.

He hasn't stopped thinking about it, come Nationals. Something is tug-tug-tugging at him, phone burning a hole in his pocket, fingers drawn toward the livestream address every time he's near a device with an internet connection.

"You're really itching to watch them, huh?" Numajiri teases, sensing his restlessness. He grows serious for a moment. "You've become a great captain, Yuuji. It's almost like fate had a hand in it. You meeting Karasuno's captain, that felt meant to be."

* * *

This is how it goes: Bobata yells, "Yuuji, this guy looks exactly like you," and he turns to see Sawamura clad in orange, lunging to block a lithe blonde with a manic grin he has to admit resembles his own. Then the camera pans to a slender, white-haired boy with the captain's underscore under the white 1 on his jersey. He is not a starter. He is warming up methodically, substitute's number card on the bench beside him.

That tug-tug-tug disappears, swallowed by the calm of the eyes below that black-tipped fringe.

"Well, you've got to see the resemblance!" Bobata says, and Yuuji nods.

"Yeah," he says, eyes fixed on the substitution happening onscreen. _Kita Shinsuke_ , he reads. Then he sits and watches, and that desire which had been burning low and steady for Sawamura's leadership consumes him alive.

* * *

This is how it goes: Yuuji has never been anything but impulsive, even having just received an unintentional masterclass in yet another form of captainship. He catches the train to Tokyo.

He's unsure what he meant to find, when he gets to the stadium. The air is cool, if stagnant with the mire of several million workers and not enough trees; he is clutching the name of a school and the family-name first-name of a student who is about to graduate, who may have already left, and who he already suspects will never play volleyball again.

He is looking: for advice, to be led, to be mentored, for some insight into how to lead a team of wild-eyed hellions when he sees himself most in the ludicrously-talented lookalike who's probably the worst of the lot on Inarizaki's team. He is looking: for a friend. He is looking: for a boy, average height, decidedly not-average hair, his discipline eerie from a teenager even without its apparent contagiousness.

It is Karasuno which leads Yuuji to him, in the end. There are a few near-misses chasing white-and-black hair (though he feels immediately ridiculous the moment he recognizes Bokuto), but they take him to a shock of ginger he recognizes on the court. He can't help but stop and watch, for a moment.

Sawamura is… distilled today into the components of everything his team needs. Folded into unassuming smallness in the expanse of his defense. He looks like he's having fun, Karasuno and Nekoma alike loose-limbed even in the immediacy of serving and blocking, the relentless push of a rally so long and intricate that he can feel his own discipline slipping when he puts himself in the shoes of any of the boys on the court.

 _You have to be good to have fun_ , he thinks, and catches a newly-familiar head of hair in the stands on the other side.

* * *

This is how it goes: Yuuji is struck by sudden trepidation, but makes his way over anyway. Kita — it is clear it is him, now — is quiet, composed, hands resting on his knees, eyes alight with interest and trained on the match below. There are empty seats around him. This far up, in the shadow of the rows that do not catch the floodlights, he is a beacon.

The dark-skinned starter is sitting with him, the seat between them an indistinguishable mass of jackets and bags. Their voices are low enough Yuuji can't make anything out over the roar of the crowd. Ojiro sees Yuuji at the end of their row, standing still and hesitant like a child presented with something just a little frightening. Acknowledges him with a nod. A quiet word to Kita, and he beckons Yuuji over.

Yuuji slides quickly and more than a little awkwardly into the seat next to Kita. Thinks for a moment about leaving a seat's width between them, but it's too late. The older boy smiles at him, warm if neutral.

"Aran saw you looking. Did you want to talk to him?"

Ah. Absently, Yuuji remembers the way other students, picking their way down the opposite aisle, had watched the ace. It reminds him a little of his mother coming to pick him up at primary school, tiny as she is, and the way kids in his grade had snuck up behind her for the novelty of comparing heights with an adult. There's something to their blatant admiration-fascination that must get tiring, he thinks, but Ojiro's stance and smile remain open.

"I wanted to talk to you, actually. I didn't think I'd actually find you, though."

Kita's face doesn't change, but Ojiro chuckles and leans back in his seat, fingers laced behind his head.

"He's all yours, then," he says. Stretches, fingertips extending his spine into a single solid line of power. "Nice to have a change."

* * *

This is how it goes: both Kita and Ojiro offer to move so they can have some privacy, or perhaps go outside. Yuuji declines; Ojiro has been nothing but gracious, and is a formidable leader himself besides. It feels somehow correct to be in the stands watching Karasuno, in any case.

Not that he's doing much of that, right now. Kita's eyes are even more luminous up close, and less indecipherable. He's watching Yuuji with distinct curiosity.

"You traveled here from Miyagi today?"

"Ah, yeah. I watched your match yesterday. My team played Karasuno in the regional qualifiers." Yuuji shrugs, a one-shouldered thing. "We lost," he adds redundantly.

"I see." A smile, small but somehow presented with care. "So did we."

Ojiro, who is otherwise doing a very good job of appearing fully engrossed in the match, snorts. Kita's smile grows a fraction brighter.

"What about our match brought you all the way here?"

What, indeed. A hundred thoughts swim through Yuuji's mind like a school of fish, too slippery to catch or dissect.

"You," he says eventually. "Your leadership."

Once he gets there, the words prepare themselves, sliced perfectly across the grain to expose their meat.

"My team... we like to have fun. We're all a little bit like your setter, I think. Playing Karasuno made me think that maybe I needed to be something else, as captain. But I'm not him, and I don't know how to be."

Kita turns his gaze back to the court, where Sawamura is attempting to corral the mismatched first-year pair. "He has a tough job, that's for sure, but a rewarding one."

"So do you."

Kita hums. "Why me, though? There are a hundred coaches and captains here today, every one of a Nationals caliber. Sawamura himself, for one. Most of them spend more time on the court than I do." There's no acrimony in his tone; he's stating a fact he's comfortable with.

"That's the thing, though. You aren't even there all the time, but they clearly trust you so much that it's obvious even on camera." There's a thought being pieced together in Yuuji's head, and he stops to put each element in place. He wants to match Kita's precision. "I think... if there's one thing I believe in, it's that we can get really, really good, and still have fun. Watching Sawamura taught me that a dependable captain is an important part of that. Watching you made me wonder if I can become someone who makes them better."

He stops. Smiles, lopsided and wry. "Uh. I know I don't really look like a good influence. But I want to be."

He doesn't know how to explain it, really, even after all this talking. All he knows is that he'd looked at Kita and thought: this boy is entirely unreadable, but I get the feeling he knows exactly what he's doing. Makes a conscious choice in a way Sawamura doesn't, at least not always; makes one infinitely more subtle than Seijoh's captain's machinations; makes it work.

"I think you can be," Kita says. "I think you've already made the choice to be a good influence."

Something settles warm in Yuuji's chest, kindled by Kita's earnest gaze.

* * *

This is how it goes: Kita is, somehow, exactly what Yuuji thought he would be. Infinitely generous with his wisdom, but ready to do so only because he possesses and frequently revisits the depth and clarity of understanding that allows one to impart knowledge to someone else.

He is generous in other ways, too. Yuuji finds himself at dinner with a boy who had no reason to even entertain his companionship in an empty row at a spectacular match. He is clearly not accustomed to talking at length about something he holds so close to his heart, but he does so anyway: tells Yuuji about the choices he makes, day after day, and his unfailing trust that these choices will lead him to where he needs to go.

"There is no magical moment," he says, nodding his thanks to the server refilling their teapot. "Every day, every situation, do what you think is right."

"And what if it isn't?"

"Then you'll know for next time. There are no catastrophic moments, either."

Kita lifts his teacup, swallows thrice. "Forgive me for presuming. It doesn't seem like you're one to be paralyzed by indecision."

"Well, no," Yuuji concedes. "But I make my choices on the fly. I don't really know what guides them, and it scares me, thinking that each one matters."

A smile. "They do, and they don't. It's the cumulative weight of all of them that opens up the path, behind and in front of you. It does get easier with practice. Nobody's good just because they were born good, I think. They decide to be, and they keep deciding to be."

"What did I decide, then, getting on that train this morning?" A question he's been asking himself.

Kita studies him then. "You decided you cared enough about your team to take a chance against all odds."

* * *

This is how it goes: Yuuji walks Kita back to the hotel Inarizaki's staying at. Ojiro, looking quite harangued, welcomes him back with clear relief.

"The twins are at it again," he says.

Kita's smile is fond. "When are they not? Is anything on fire?"

Ojiro sighs. It's clear this is well-traced ground. "Well, no."

"Then we'll be all right. Let's go," Kita says. "I miss them already."

"Maybe they'll even make you laugh this time," Ojiro mutters.

Kita turns to Yuuji. "It was a pleasure," he says. "Thank you for your company tonight. I look forward to seeing you succeed."

* * *

This is how it goes: in the span of a few hours with the boy, in a city neither of them calls home, Yuuji learns the lessons that he'll carry for a lifetime. That tug-tug-tug returns with a vengeance. Every drill, every meal, every disagreement, he lets it pull him toward choices which are expansive in their kindness. At first, it's _Kita would approve_ , but that fades with time, even as their messages grow more frequent and more intimate.

Then, when he's well and truly married patience to his still-irrepressible, joyous spirit, that tug-tug-tug leads him home.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i thought about this very, very rare pair on a whim, and then this happened. more generally, i wish we got more terushima content - it seems like there's a real potential for his crossing paths with our protagonists to change his life, and here's just one of a million ways that could have happened for him.
> 
> another thought: doing the right thing means making choices not to beat yourself up, a lot of the time. every choice is a do-over. every moment is just one in a series of them. if i don't do something on my to-do list for the day, i write it in for the next day, over and over, until it gets done. it works for me, both for "wash dishes" and "think before you speak". kita's philosophy is so, so interesting to me because it's so close to basically the only way i've found to successfully see massive growth in myself!
> 
> this fic can be retweeted [here](https://twitter.com/emdashing/status/1321688894526656512).


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